


Chamomile

by Dribbledscribbles



Category: The Magnus Archives
Genre: I would like the thing that isn't tea to be a recurring character please Mr. Sims sir, M/M, Not-Tea can have little a violence against intruders, as a treat, there's a tiny bit of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23373862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dribbledscribbles/pseuds/Dribbledscribbles
Summary: Whatever the ex-tea was, if it really had ever been that last bag of chamomile Martin claimed he’d found tucked in the back of the cupboard, it was fast now.Martin had tried catching it, chasing it, blocking its way with shoebox lids and plates and an upended footstool, but the thing was just too quick. Jon knew as well as Knew that he might have left off the attempts completely if not for the creature’s preferred game.The game was, See How Many Times I Can Push Martin Towards Cardiac Arrest Before He Comes at Me with The Broom.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 120
Kudos: 987





	Chamomile

Whatever the ex-tea was, if it really had ever been that last bag of chamomile Martin claimed he’d found tucked in the back of the cupboard, it was fast now. 

Martin had tried catching it, chasing it, blocking its way with shoebox lids and plates and an upended footstool, but the thing was just too quick. Jon knew as well as Knew that he might have left off the attempts completely if not for the creature’s preferred game.

The game was, See How Many Times I Can Push Martin Towards Cardiac Arrest Before He Comes at Me with The Broom.

It played this game by hiding in any number of places, tucking itself inside actual food, or in a slipper, or behind a corner, or under a chair, or in the curtains, or in the shower, waiting for footsteps. Then, the second Martin was close enough, it scuttle-sprinted into view, sparking another round of yelping swears as it made its escape. Other times it relied on its oldest trick, disguising itself as whatever innocuous thing Martin was looking for. It would wait until Martin trusted that it was what it looked like, until:

A) Martin tried to press a button on the ‘remote,’ only to have it erupt into the awful, chittering thing that it really was, producing vocalizations that ranged from a shout to a shriek.

B) Jon ruined the fun too early, stopping Martin short of actually touching it. 

The thing didn’t know what to think of Jon, Jon Knew. Jon did not react to it, or to any of the other alterations the little house made to itself. Unless Jon was actively interacting with Martin, he was usually stationary. He would find a place to stand or to sit or to lay down and just not move until Martin’s presence dictated he must. If the thing hadn’t known better, it would have assumed Jon was just another piece of the household that had gained sentience. A former coat rack, maybe.

But no, Jon was Jon, whatever Jon was, and he was similar enough in make to Martin that he should, logically, be part of the game too. Only, as time went on, the thing realized Jon simply refused to react to it beyond a disinterested glance. Perhaps a glare when it had just finished shocking Martin into a fresh panic. 

The most it had gotten out of him was a flat, “Stop that,” spoken into a shampoo bottle. He was not in the shower, but hunched over the sink, not wanting to waste any hot water for Martin’s turn. He waited. 

The shampoo bottle had not replied. Jon gave up, pointed it at his palm, and squeezed out what someone else would’ve believed to be a normal glop of shampoo. It was, of course, the ex-tea, doing its best to remain glop-shaped, waiting to be accidentally applied to Jon’s scalp with hilarious results. The illusion was helped by the fact that it was so cleverly masked by a sheen of actual shampoo. It waited.

Jon sighed.

“Goodness, what a completely innocent heap of hair product that is. I trust it entirely.”

The creature kept itself from shuddering in victory. Having nothing better to do, and no energy left to convince himself he did, Jon lifted the thing up to his damp head. It abruptly flung off its disguise, all spindly legs and hisses. Jon didn’t move. He stared at the chipped mirror, blandly marveling at the image of his calm. It was funny to think how grateful he’d have been for this mock-composure not a month ago while assorted horrors used him for their chew toy.

Now he just doesn’t care. And doesn’t care that he doesn’t care.

The thing skittering around on his head noticed as much. So it tried harder. It tugged at his hair, climbed down the back of his head, raced around his neck, scuttled back and forth on his shoulders, nipped him on the ear, batted at his jaw, hissed and chittered.

Jon had dealt with worse. Hell, the Admiral had inoculated him ages ago to the pin cushion treatment. He put a dollop of real shampoo in his hand and started to lather. 

The thing paused on his tilted shoulder. The scattered beads of its eyes stared up at him with a vague sense of insult. It pinched his arm.

“Ow.”

Pinched him again.

“Ow.”

Scratch, bite. It all healed.

“Move.”

Jon ducked his head under the tap to rinse. The thing climbed up to squat between his shoulder blades. It paced there, feeling like unclipped nails drumming anxiously on his spine. When Jon righted himself, it clung, digging in with a clawed grip. 

“You done?”

The thing hesitated on his back, fumbling with the appendages that weren’t clinging to him. Then it was clambering down his leg. Jon watched it shoot to the place just beside the bathroom door, folding into the shape of a dropped washcloth that an unsuspecting Martin might go to pick up. 

“No. You don’t get to do that. Out.”

The washcloth hissed. Jon crouched down beside it. 

“I mean it. You don’t do this in the bathroom. Common courtesy.”

The washcloth opened several glaring eyes. Claws, mandibles, and nested teeth peeked out from the illusion of terrycloth. 

Jon opened a few of his Eyes back.

“No.” It was more than a word. The air flinched with the duty of holding it. 

The washcloth was no longer a washcloth, but a dark little jumble of anatomy pressing itself as flat against the floor as it could. Its eyes were open much, much wider. Jon closed his Eyes with a sigh. 

“No bathroom. Understand?” An impulse came to him, mingled with the sad acknowledgment that he was tired of calling this thing—and all the other new ‘things’ that turned up post-Change—a thing. Even with all his Knowing, it got old trying to keep all the different things straight. So. “You understand me, Chamomile? Not here. No bathroom.”

To his threadbare surprise, the thing—Chamomile—actually slither-skittered to the door. Jon watched it watch him as it squeezed under the crack and left. A moment later, Martin shouted. A happy scuttling fled down the hall’s ceiling and was gone. 

“Shower’s yours,” Jon called.

That should’ve been the end of it.

Chamomile disagreed. 

Chamomile did so by becoming Jon’s tiny, irritating shadow. While Martin was glad of the decrease in ambushes, he was infinitely less glad to spot Chamomile racing in frantic laps around—and sometimes on—Jon’s person. It climbed on him, jumped on or off him, pounced on whatever book he was pretending to read, and, if it was feeling daring, simply clung to Jon’s face for a staring contest. When Martin went to lay a hand on Jon’s shoulder and Chamomile burst out from under the shirt collar with a chittering victory cry, he drew the line.

“Jon, seriously, you can’t let that thing keep crawling on you. Who knows if it’s got, you know, eldritch diseases on it or something?”

“I Know it doesn’t. The scratches heal too.”

“Not a good enough reason to let it use you as a jungle gym.”

Jon shrugged. 

“If it’s with me, it’s not bothering you.”

“The fact that it’s staring at me from the top of your head is very much bothering me.”

“Okay. Chamomile?” Chamomile paused in its rolling in Jon’s hair. “Down.” Chamomile gave a parting tug on some locks, then crawled hastily down Jon’s side, all the way to the floor. It stole one of Jon’s slippers and scuttled under the bed. “There. What?”

“Chamomile? Since when is it Chamomile?”

“Since I got tired of just calling it a thing. They can’t all be things. Like the thing that used to be a flowerbox that sleeps on the porch swing now. That’s Petunia.”

“And it just listens to you? Just like that?”

“Sort of? Not sure if it’s me being Compelling or it getting spooked by the Eyes or just me being Understood despite the language barrier. But it gets gone when I tell it.”

“…Does it come back?”

“What?”

“If you call it, does it come out?”

Jon hadn’t tried before. Usually it just popped up whenever and wherever it felt like, which was usually too many places and too often for Jon’s liking. 

Still.

“Chamomile?” He tapped his slipper-less foot on the floorboards. “Come on.” A moment later a black blur lunged out and snapped around his ankle. It quickly circled up his leg and resumed running around on Jon, on the bed, on Jon again. “I guess so. Before you say it, no, this does not count as it being tame. Do not trust this thing as far as you can throw it.”

“It’s in your lap, Jon.”

“It’s trying to steal the lip balm in my pocket, Martin. Chamomile’s a bit of a kleptomaniac.”

“For what?”

“Anything it can carry.”

“Could it—,” Martin threw his best glare at Chamomile, which, despite not having the facial ability for it, seemed to grin, “—did it take my favorite pen? The one with the sunbeam gilding?”

Jon looked into it, and promptly Knew, “Yes, it did. Also your pair of socks with the stars on them.”

“I thought those got lost in one of the Spiral cracks!” Martin pointed an accusing finger at Chamomile, who had successfully pried the lip balm out and was now hissing with evil glee. “You thieving little prick!” Chamomile took this as a cue to leap and make a dash out the door. “Jon, where does it take it all? Do you Know?”

“I’ve tried to See, but I think it must either be destroying them or hiding them in an Unknowing pocket.”

“Those spots where the, uh,” Martin searched for a word that would soften the description of random, total disorientation and dread that floated in and out of the house, “dizzy spells happen?”

“Yeah. Right now, it’s ducking into a blind spot somewhere in the dining room. Behind the china cabinet.”

They went to it. Martin got ‘dizzy’ and had to retreat, but Jon weathered it easily enough, prying back the cabinet. Chamomile crouched atop its hoard, sulking at the discovery. It snapped and chittered menacingly. 

Jon pried one Eye open.

The chittering became less menacing.

Jon gathered up Martin’s stolen goods, but left the lip balm. 

This was a mistake, if only because it resulted in a new equation for Chamomile:

Martin’s stuff = No. 

Jon’s stuff = Not no.

This led to Chamomile making a point of claiming anything Jon appeared to have even passing ownership of. Which didn’t much bother Jon—he barely used anything in the house anymore—and he was actually rather pleased at the routine when the tape recorders started popping up again. 

A tape recorder on the kitchen table? In the living room? On the bed? By his chair? Jon only had to touch it, wait, and conspicuously turn his back to it. A moment later there would be a stealthy skittering and a scrape of plastic. When he looked back, there would either be no tape recorder, or a, ‘very definitely real tape recorder’ holding its shape, hiding its many eyes inside the spools of the cassette. Jon would oblige the latter by reaching over to click a ‘button,’ only to be dutifully shocked and outraged when Chamomile revealed itself in a flailing of limbs and teeth. Rinse and repeat. Just another thing to adapt around. 

Then, about a month in, Petunia crossed paths with it.

Jon didn’t know how or why Chamomile had gone out, or why it had gotten Petunia upset. If he had to guess, he’d say Chamomile had made its own mistake of perception and mistaken Petunia for an actual arrangement of flowers. Perhaps it had intended to rip some up and camouflage itself there to spook Martin, should he come around to pick some non-hazardous blooms to put in the pitcher on the kitchen table. Jon could imagine it going to tear out a few flowers, only to discover Petunia didn’t like having its toxic hackles yanked on.

Jon might have Known what happened, only he was still quite preoccupied with his psyche being perpetually drowned in the mire of human terror and misery going on beyond the house’s acreage. It kept one rather distracted. But not quite distracted enough to keep from hearing the racket coming from the front porch.

One noise was a colossal, rolling warble of bass. Like a bull crocodile crossed with the glottal noise of a backed-up drain.

The other noise was the tinny, shrilling sound of an insectile creature that was fighting for its life and knowing it was losing. 

Jon was out the door before Martin could ask him what the hell was happening.

On the porch swing, Petunia’s ‘flowers’ were snarled around Chamomile’s thrashing shape, slowly dragging it toward the soft, acidic chasm that served as its mouth. Martin had mentioned catching it in their outdoor trash bin more than once, dissolving and slurping up whatever was inside. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about garbage piling up.

Chamomile was no longer shrilling, but squealing. Its claws dragged desperately at the air while the nested mouth clung as hard as it could to Petunia’s surface, steadily losing its hold.

“Hey.” 

Chamomile looked up with all its eyes. The limbs flailed in his direction, the squeal rising up to a high, dog whistle keening.

Petunia did not pause.

Jon opened half his Eyes.

“Hey!”

Chamomile and Petunia flinched in unison. The attempted meal came to a wincing halt. Petunia had no eyes of its own, but the ‘petals’ all turned to look at him. Jon walked up to the swing, Eyes burning, his voice now his Voice. Both Chamomile and Petunia flattened themselves as much as they could. Jon untangled Chamomile without looking and scooped it up in one hand. The other pointed at Petunia.

“No. No fighting.” He turned his Eyes on Chamomile. “No fighting.” He looked to both of them, splitting his Eyes in either direction. “Understand?”

They couldn’t answer. But Petunia did slide off the swing and squelch its way off the porch to pout in the crawlspace. And Chamomile didn’t act up for the rest of the, quote, day, unquote. Instead, it welded itself to Jon’s side, refusing to stay away no matter how many times Jon shooed it. When he turned in for bed and another fun bout of pretending he could still sleep for more than an hour, Chamomile was still there.

“So,” Martin hummed as Chamomile made its new bed in Jon’s hair, “should we find a bell to hang on them?”

“It’s not a cat.”

“Of course. …Do you think Cammie would feel at home in one of the teapots? There’s a chipped one in the pantry. We could stick a little pillow inside.” 

“Martin.”

“Mm?”

“Since when is it Cammie?”

Martin hummed again and pretended to reread the same article from the same outdated home-and-garden magazine.

“Oh, I’d say since you decided to rescue the little terror from its imminent demise and let it crawl into bed with you.” He turned a page and pretended to reread that too. “Should we lay a dish out for them? Do they actually eat anything?”

“Not that I Know of. And it,” Jon tamped down a sigh as Chamomile made another fidgeting circuit across his face and back to his scalp, “they could just as easily be on your side of the bed.”

“No, no, that’s all you. It’s gone and imprinted on you now.”

“Not a duckling either.” Jon waited as Chamomile climbed down again, this time deciding to get cozy right on top of his Adam’s apple. The oblong limbs hugged him like a necklace. “You aren’t comfortable having them here, are you?”

“I’m not thrilled, exactly. But if this is how our version of normal’s going to work, then I’ve got to get acclimated, don’t I?”

“This isn’t normal, and no, you don’t. I don’t even Know if they’re safe to have around when we sleep. I can just put them in the hall, put a towel against the door—,”

“Or you could just Capital T Talk to them.”

“And say what? ‘No maiming us in our sleep, Chamomile, that’s a no-no?’”

“Well, that’s certainly something to work into the message, yeah, but I was thinking more along the lines of—you know—positive reinforcement? All the big Talks you’ve given out have been No-Don’t-Do-That finger-wagging.”

“First off, I do not finger-wag. Second of all, that term is terrible, don’t use it again—,”

“See? Finger-wagging.”

“I’m not!”

“Mm.”

Jon could almost see the halo Martin was trying to will into existence over his head. He looked down to where Chamomile had changed their mind again, making a new bed out of his nearly concave stomach. There was more room than usual with the missing ribs. Jon opened an Eye. 

“…Chamomile.”

Chamomile froze. Watched. Jon drummed his fingers on his chest.

“Come here?”

Chamomile crept up to his sternum. Jon waited until they were still before laying his hand on them. There was space only in the exact middle of their back to actually ‘pet,’ but this was apparently enough to make Chamomile untense to the point of nearly liquefying. The moment Jon paused, the tension snapped back and the nested mouth hissed. 

“No.”

Quiet. Back to rubbing.

“Yes.” Chamomile resumed melting into a multi-legged tangle of unholy contented sounds. 

For one deeply sour moment, Jon thought of Dylan Anderson and his monstrous Pig. The latter had been an intrinsically malevolent beast which decided, out of all the living things it considered meals, Dylan was the one who qualified as its Friend. Only Dylan had let Gertrude smother the thing in concrete. 

Jon had, for reasons he had no energy to scrutinize, rescued the menace making its hideous pleased sounds over his heart. 

“That’s right,” Jon sighed. “Friend.” When Jon’s hand got tired and tried to pull away, Chamomile immediately snapped their limbs around his fingers, caging them. “Martin? That’s your cue.”

“Uh, right. Right, yes.”

“Second thoughts?”

“No, no, it’s just—well, you can heal up if they get snippy, but I’ve only got the one set of fingers.”

“I’ll keep my Eye on them. Chamomile?” 

Chamomile looked at him, still clinging to his hand.

“Martin,” Jon said, pointing to Martin. “Yes. Friend.”

Chamomile regarded Martin blandly. When Martin reached for them—with his left hand, Jon saw—the spindly limbs rose up in rigid spikes.

“Friend,” Jon repeated. He pointed to himself. “Jon Friend.” Back to Martin. “Martin Friend. Yes?”

The limbs gradually untensed. Martin followed suit. A bit. He touched the center of Chamomile’s back with his middle finger. Whether Chamomile was following the term ‘friend’ or not, they absolutely recognized what the contact meant. Martin let out a very interesting noise as Chamomile immediately jumped from Jon’s chest to his, promptly settling on his collarbone. Their limbs bent backward on joints that made no sense, tapping their back impatiently. Martin got to work. The horrible, happy noises resumed.

“Oh. Okay, that’s—I did not expect it to feel like…”

“Massaging a wet leather sack full of beads and pus?”

“You really have a way with words, Jon. And yes, thank you, that is exactly what it feels like.”

“Well, you two enjoy each other. Goodnight.” Jon turned off his lamp and closed his eyes, keeping one Eye half-open. 

“Jon.”

Jon pulled the covers up to his chin.

“Jon?”

Jon turned over.

“Jonathan Sims, you are not leaving me like this. I can’t even turn the pages now, they’ve got me using both hands. Jon?”

Jon snored.

“Cammie, get him. Go to Jon. Jon Friend. Please?”

Jon smiled for the first time in a week against the pillow. He waited until Martin was truly on the tipping point of REM sleep before quietly turning back over. Chamomile was folded up under both of Martin’s broad hands, looking like a dark lump of pins and toothpicks. The moment Jon moved, the protrusion that seemed to be their head perked up, half their eyes shining open.

“Go back to sleep. It’s fine.”

But he was not using his Voice, and he did not bother to shoo them when he was followed out to the front porch. Petunia had still not returned to the swing. Jon swept the leftover granules of dirt off and sat. 

There was no ignoring the horror tides now, not with Martin asleep. Even so, he preferred to be outdoors, as if he could hide his contentment at consumption the same way he’d once snuck his cigarettes. Chamomile perched on his knee. Above them, as always, the Eye stared.

The next tape recorder appeared a week later. Along with their guest.

Jon’s only excuse for missing its arrival was that a particularly big pocket of Unknowing had passed through at the same time. A great, lumbering cloud of it, staining reality with free-floating impossibilities and general Strangeness before drifting off to the west. There had been a knock at the door just as it passed over the house. Martin had answered it. Later, he would tell Jon that he vaguely remembered thinking he was back in his flat, welcoming a new neighbor inside. 

He had already been pouring tea by the time he began to register something was Wrong. Namely, that their guest was not only not human, but not letting his mind go. It had him just tight enough in its mental grasp that Martin was forced to perform the polite gestures of a welcoming host, but just loose enough to know that he was talking to a creature that could, would, and wanted to eat his life once it grew bored of walking him around.

Jon walked in on the pair of them sitting on the couch, their cups still on the table as Martin grinned helplessly at the guest’s tight-lipped smile. Sweat was beaded on his brow and the first sheen of tears was misting his eyes. The guest glanced Jon’s way with lukewarm interest.

Vampires, Jon saw now, were only capable of psychic communication as a one-way street. Shouting their mental chatter and flinging their telepathic hooks out without being able to receive anything back. If the vampire had been capable of hearing what Jon was thinking, he was quite sure it’d fling itself out the window. Instead, it let Jon take an armchair and sit with his own teacup in one hand. 

The vampire did not seem to notice or care how Jon had brought his own cup into the room when the full tea service was laid out on the table. No more than it seemed to care that Martin had poured fresh cups of centipedes rather than tea. These things happened.

It did seem slightly on edge about the fact that Jon refused to respond to its mute conversation starters.

H e l l o. A m n e w n e i g h b o r. A m g r e e t i n g. L o v e l y h o m e.

Jon only stared and cradled his cup. 

He waited until it turned to face Martin before gently suggesting, “You can leave now and serve as a warning to your fellow leeches, or you can stay for tea.” Jon raised the cup to the level of his chin. “Which is it?”

The vampire frowned at him. Clearly not used to being noticed in the world pre-Change, used to being extremely unnoticeable in the world post-Change. There were so many louder, plainer horrors skulking around that they could glide around virtually invisible. Jon was spoiling the script. But not by enough. It grinned at him.

T e a. V e r y t h i r s t y.

At that, the grin began peeling open. The teeth were just as Trevor Herbert described. More shark than leech, the tongue a slithering proboscis. Martin gawked between this sight and Jon and back again, still frozen in place. The tongue flew.

“Hope you like Chamomile.”

The cup was, of course, no longer a cup. The reality of it lunged and clamped around the tip like a jagged fist. Chamomile hissed in elation as the vampire’s eyes bulged. There were a few panicked grabs at them, the pale hands clawing wildly at the black clump of pincers and claws. 

Martin broke free of the spell just as the proboscis’ tip fell and plopped meatily on the coffee table. 

“Jesus Christ—!” he began and didn’t finish as Jon got him to his feet and out of the room. Jon stayed with him, Seeing the rest regardless. 

One moment Chamomile was trimming off chunks of tongue, the next they were disappearing down the vampire’s throat. This would have been impossible, considering how the vampire’s anatomy allowed no passage for anything but the tongue, but Chamomile quickly made the necessary adjustments. Snip, clip, claw, cut, all the way down. Even without vocal cords, the wet, bubbling sounds the vampire produced before it hit the floor were quite a giveaway as to just how comfortable the procedure wasn’t.

The rest of the noise came down to very muffled, likewise fleshy sounds coming from inside the vampire’s chest cavity. Minutes later, Chamomile came scuttling into the kitchen, every spare appendage cradling a new prize. They laid over a dozen serrated teeth on the floor at Jon and Martin’s feet. Martin looked from these to the limp legs that were visible from around the corner of the room. Jon got to one knee and scooped Chamomile up, thumbing away some red grime.

“You’ve earned those, they’re yours. Good Chamomile. Martin?”

Martin had dared to peek entirely into the living room. Then he’d promptly gone to the kitchen sink to decide whether or not he was going to dry heave. 

“Yeah?”

“Are you alright?”

“Will be. I think.”

Jon waited, rubbing circles in Chamomile’s back. Then:

“Petunia prefers to eat out of the bin, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Do you want to get the arms or the legs?”

Martin hacked something into the sink.

“Martin—?”

“Arms! I’ll get the arms.” He straightened and looked to Chamomile. After several wobbling breaths, he made it over to Jon’s side. Chamomile trilled their terrible joy-song as Martin pet them alongside Jon’s kneading thumb. “Good work, Cammie.” He mustered something close to a smile. “And to think I used to not like teacup breeds.”

Jon bit down a retch. 

“Martin, I love you very much, but that one may actually get me to throw myself in the bin too.”

“I’m going to knit a little shirt for them. It’ll say, You’re My Cup of Tea.”

“I will pull you into the bin with me.”

Chamomile lingered on Jon’s shoulder as he and Martin took out the trash. Martin knocked on the metal so it rang, now a habit whenever he dumped something new in the bin. Petunia came lurching into view, all eager gurgles and pulsing flowers. They spared a growl at Chamomile who spared a hiss back before both parties resumed their mutual ignorance of each other. Then Petunia got in the bin and was left to their work.

That night—at least the Darkest portion of the ‘day,’ ergo, ‘night,’—dinner barely put up a fight before giving in and deciding to just stay pasta. Martin ate more than he had in days, Jon ate a few forkfuls that he came close to actually tasting through the usual miasma of the constant human misery-meal, and Chamomile ran around cheerfully slaying every centipede that was missed in the post-vampire cleanup. 

Jon thought of a book to Know, a comedy, and read the text aloud as if he held the novel in front of him, complete with voices, making Martin crack up in glassy-eyed snorts and wheezes for hours. Chamomile kept at least three hands on them at all times, as was their due. 

Outside, the Changed world rolled around their little house in the Eye of the storm.

But inside, well. At least they had tea.


End file.
